Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Internet Users Beware

This morning I went into a historical site to lookup something that I needed to make a Facebook comment intelligently. I am big on researching my facts. When I entered the site a box popped up and a woman's voice began to instruct me about the message the box contained. She said that I had just downloaded some dangerous malware and would need to call the number in the box to get it removed. She further admonished me not to do any online shopping.

Accordingly, I called the number. A man answered and said hello. I asked him to whom I was speaking. He told me that he was a Microsoft tech. Further he said that for a nominal fee I could have the malware removed. When I asked if he was a salesman, he became indignant and belligerent. At that point he refused to help me. I hung up on him. It is interesting to note that my screen was frozen by this event, and I had to shut it off and reboot.

I then put in a call to Microsoft (still waiting to hear back from them) and called my virus protection company to ask them if they knew anything about my risk for malware. They told me that these popup windows are something known as phishing, and that they have been hearing about this particular gag for a while now. I finished by reporting the number to the FCC.

Here is the number should you need to know it: 1-888-603-4618

This is the FCC's complaint website: https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us

My last words on the subject were to the FCC when I suggested that they would serve the public that funds them far better by concentrating on shutting down parasites like the people at 1-888-603-4618 rather then helping greedy bastards like Comcast limit access to the Internet through speed peddling.